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and talents work themselves into a crew, because everyone works on the movies.
“There are arguments about who does what,” admits Gili. “Once the scripts are chosen, each person who wants to direct has to write up a vision document. And then we look at them and decide, have they got the best take on the script, have they been a team player, have they been on time for class, that kind of thing.”
These methods, as well as the way in which they interview, (“we turn down a lot of people”, says Ascott), means that there are already success stories.
During the tour, Daisy introduces Rob Hall, a graduate of the first intake
who has just finished as Assistant Editor on Spivs, a new British movie starring Nick Moran. He had come back to the school to edit the Making Of documentary and use one of the Mini-DV cameras to shoot an addition- al interview with the movie’s leading child actress.
This only serves to prove that despite the lack of facilities and big- name patrons (although Peter Capaldi
is a Directing Tutor), good people want to come to the London Film Academy.
“Everyone who has signed up to date has signed up because of the con- tent, because they had nothing else to sign up to,” says Gili. “Initially, we did- n’t even have our tutors listed. People
Photos: The London Film Academy students at work; above right: The Academy’s Principal Daisy Gili
came because of what the content of the course would be.”
She does have plans for expansion though: “I’d like to have a studio in the back.” The current one is cramped thanks to overhead, struc- ture-supporting beams.
“I have plans drawn up, but you have to pay the rent. I’d quite like NOT to have to just take more and more students to pay for it, because you end up not helping them.”
And although David Puttnam said that they were welcome to quote him, they are yet to secure any famous, direct supporters of the school. That said, Gili has set up a masterclass at the Curzon Soho, not just for LFA stu- dents, called Director Vs Crew, where a director and a crew member come together to talk about their latest film.
Lynne Ramsay has already visited with her screenwriter Liana Dognini. Stephen Poliakoff is due in October with his casting director and at a recent event, John De Borman waxed lyrically about the quality of Fuji stock in the making of Gillies Mackinnon’s Pure.
So lyrically, in fact, that most of the Academy’s students felt compelled to use Fuji for their graduation movies.
The Academy is not very glam- orous and it could do with some more equipment and it probably has a way to go before it is a genuinely recog-
nised name in the film school world. But it’s undoubtedly a slick opera-
tion, filled with an infectious energy. It is almost as if, while other schools churn out graduating class after graduating class with bored ease, this youthful establishment – the building itself – is still excited to be a home to moviemak- ers, not yet cynical about the harsh world it is preparing its children for.
Daisy Gili waits until the tape recorder is turned off before finally acknowledging what it seems she wanted to say all along. “There’s been a lot of blood, sweat and tears getting to this point,” she smiles, “but it’s been worth it.” ■ BEN FALK
“There’s a degree of natural selection that takes place, as egos and talents work themselves into
a crew, because everyone works on the movies.”
HALLOWED HALL
The London Film Academy cuts its cloth to suit their students
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